HP'ers favorite discredited Phoenix realtor Greg Swann (he who shall not be linked) admitted the other day in the Arizona Republic that Phoenix housing prices have crashed 24% from the peak (thanks HP'ers for the lead).
So should we now expect locusts and wormwood? Along with the assorted flying pigs and hot times in hell of course.
He was great at unprofessional name calling and bluster, but if you wanted sound, rational, unbiased housing market analysis, you were MUCH better off going elsewhere. It's the 6% HP'ers - it makes people say and do stupid things.
Here was his hilarious admission this week:
"Values for an average suburban Phoenix home were down 14.66% year-over-year. That doesn’t sound too bad, but prices were down almost six percent just in December. We’re down 24% from the peak in December of 2005, on average"
Yet here he was in 2006, when he was pissing on HP'ers as sewer-living Brown Shirts and Flying Monkeys who would be proven wrong:
"To lurk among the BubbleBloggers and their seething commentariat is to acquire an education in a slice of America invisible from this side of the sewer gratings. Notwithstanding the idiotic economic analysis, which is really no worse than the static-market fallacies paraded as profundities in the pages of the Arizona Republic, these sites — and not just HousingPanic — are infested with a cult-like fever to inflict suffering — at second hand, to be sure — on people who are in fact guilty of nothing except failing to have drunk the BubbleBlogger KoolAde."
"The BubbleBloggers will someday bawl balefully in private, but they will never, ever admit that they have been very publicly very foolish. You will know and I will know and in the secret chambers of their hearts they will know they were wrong all along. But as long as you don’t hold your breath waiting for that contrite admission of error, you should be fine."
So, I guess the question is, when do we get Swanndive's contrite admission of error? And how do his financially devastated former victims (I mean clients - if he had any) get their money back?
I think this embarrassing about-face shows just how bad it's getting for the ramen eaters now. The NAR talking points are out the window, and in a desperate attempt to make 6%, they're trying the one and only thing they haven't tried before:
The truth.
January 16, 2008
Greg Swann admits that the Phoenix housing market has crashed. I guess the Brown Shirts and Flying Monkeys at HP were right after all, eh?
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45 comments:
haha, give it to him Keith.
I knew this day would come!
What a dick!
He'll be flipping burgers soon
Every dog has his day!
You want an admission of error??
Greg Swan will someday bawl balefully in private, but he will never, ever admit that he has been very publicly very foolish. You will know and I will know and in the secret chambers of his heart he will know he was wrong all along. But as long as you don’t hold your breath waiting for that contrite admission of error, you should be fine.
Sounds advice Keith
Keith, Thanks for the blast from the not to distant past (Swann's Words)..
I remember flying over to his site.. Its no longer worth the effort..
We will have hit bottom when that 24% down becomes 45 to 60, thats my prediction for home values. As for the DOW 8500 may be bottom, if it stops there.
This man belongs in the rogue's gallery of real estate fools.
I am furious at this person.
If this were the 1800s, good, decent townsfolk would be chasing him down the street with hoes, shovels and pitchforks.
Possibly he would be pilloried in the public square or tarred and feathered.
What an outrage!
I hope some form of professional-level corrective action or punishment is given this loon.
the other side of the sewer gratings...
he was right about that, but he thought he was standing on the street, looking down -- when in fact he was up to his elbows in sewage, peering up though the grate.
he really is a piece of work. I would still accept his mea culpa gracefully, if he had the grace to offer one, which I very much doubt.
Dumb guys like Swann reach for a thesaurus instead of logic that they can't comprehend when entering into arguments
And then they get really upset and lose their cool and start calling people names
He should be sued by anyone taking his advice who lost money. He has provided evidence of his foolish expertise all over the net.
You know what really pisses me off?
A 24% crash would have wiped out anyone who listened to a realtor on commission like Swann who bought in the past few years, even though the realtors keep their commissions
I really do think realtors should be sued for not doing their fiduciary duties, and be forced to pay back their ill-gotten gains to their screwed clients, especially if they knowingly withheld information, or were taking secret under-the-table spiffs from lenders, builders etc
I don't know how someone as discredited as Swann can remain in the business. My guess is that he won't be for long. Not like there's much business out there to be had anyway.
Why is Phoenix a perpetual topic here?
Punishment enough for those residing there is residing there.
How about a little more intelligent topics to discuss other than Arizona? Home of the brave warrior, John McCain?
Thank you.
hi greg!! i know you still lurk here once in a while..
Of course there will be no admission of error.
If this is like any other similar situation most of us have faced, the next step will be for them to blow us off with phrases such as “let’s not dwell on the past”.
But keep hope alive Keith, sometime’s you taste victory in spite of their best efforts to deny reality.
This is a true story….
Once, when I was a financial auditor, I found strong evidence that a person had stole $30k from one of our locations. I contacted that person’s boss, and warned them of what was going on.
I presented my evidence, and then suggested that we take that persons keys and give him a paid day off while we verified my evidence. (the idea was to isolate the person from the location so there would be no further risk while we verified the bank records).
Well, the boss called their boss, and their boss, and the national HR director. They called a conference call and said that I was an idiot; that I didn’t know what I was talking about; that I had no right to accuse the person, etc.
I said “Fine, ignore it if you want, but the man is guilty; and if you do nothing he will hit again”. At that point, I got on a plane back to Detroit.
Well, in one of the great moments of good timing, that night someone wiped out the location. Stole all of the money, ½ of the stock, and a bunch of expensive equipment.
When it was all over, the suspect, his boss, and his bosses boss were all fired for not handling the situation when they were warned. The HR director stayed; he simply denied knowledge of the situation in the first place.
Mr. Swann, and all these other real estate "experts", can kiss my f'n ass!
He's so full of himself but at least he's not making money anymore plus he probably got killed on his own house
It's teh pwnership society! Bwahaha!!
Greg WHO?
"...static-market fallacies..."
Oh, jeez! Now I know what he had no idea (and maybe still doesn't) about the gargantuan economic mess that we are slowly (or maybe more quickly than even we here at HP thought) getting into worldwide.
"To lurk among the BubbleBloggers and their seething commentariat is to acquire an education in a slice of America invisible from this side of the sewer gratings."
You gotta admit. That was pretty funny prose.
EAT ME SWAN!
-BubbleBlogger
ya, greg who? In any event, PWNAGE!
Keith, I been waiting a long time for you to publicly hold Swann accountable for his outrageous commentary.
And lets be clear, men like him are the most treacherous of them all in times when critical human values are at stake.
Your work in this posting is as concise as it is devastating.
Thank you.
How's that crow taste, Greg?
Also, when you talk about peering out from sewer gratings, the bubble bloggers are on the outside - you're the one lurking around under the street like Stephen King's It.
"We all float down here!"
Jymkata
I bet he hasn't sold a house in forever
What a dick
He's given up on selling homes and is trying to make money on conferences now
"Bawl balefully" Perhaps the weakest attempt at alliteration ever in the history of mankind.
Greg Swann's junior high school (as far as he got) English teacher is hiding in a closet quietly weeping.
"But Phoenix has sunshine, great shopping and restaurants, oh and Honeywell! It can't possibly crash!"
Dopes.
I agree that realtors should be sued for breach of fiduciary duty. A massive class-action against the NAR would be nice.
dow jones up 50
fuck you
Here's a link to the article: http://tinyurl.com/ynuhwc
Everybody register and post his bubbleblogger quote in the comments.
"Dick" and "Asshole" in the dictionary are reserved for Greg Swann
Obviously, I consider this a profoundly silly question, but to lurk among the BubbleBloggers and their seething commentariat is to acquire an education in a slice of America invisible from this side of the sewer gratings. Notwithstanding the idiotic economic analysis, which is really no worse than the static-market fallacies paraded as profundities in the pages of the Arizona Republic, these sites — and not just HousingPanic — are infested with a cult-like fever to inflict suffering — at second hand, to be sure — on people who are in fact guilty of nothing except failing to have drunk the BubbleBlogger KoolAde.
That’s all one. I don’t care. The whole of the last century was dominated by the bad behavior of viciously angry wretches, but look where it got them. The BubbleBloggers will someday bawl balefully in private, but they will never, ever admit that they have been very publicly very foolish. You will know and I will know and in the secret chambers of their hearts they will know they were wrong all along. But as long as you don’t hold your breath waiting for that contrite admission of error, you should be fine.
Here’s where I do start to care. Whenever the subject of Phoenix comes up in a BubbleBlog, the assembled Brown Shirts pile on, for whatever reason. This is their perfect right — even though I think they’re wrong. I love this place. I came here for three months in 1988, and I could not wait to get back. The first time I set foot here, on March 13, 1988, I knew I was home. We moved here for good on April 1, 1991, and I cannot imagine living happily anywhere else. Our relocation page is my extended love letter to the Phoenix area, warts and all. I’ve been writing lovingly about this place since the day I got here, and I’ll keep it up at least until the day before I die here.
Which brings me back to HousingPanic’s question. We keep our own home sales price statistics, so we have no doubt that values are down from their high in December. How much? Right now, about 4%. Could they go lower? Certainly. Will they drop by the huge amounts HousingPanic and his flying monkeys seem to yearn for? This seems very unlikely.
What seems much more likely is that Phoenix will recover from the hangover of last year’s buying binge and get back to a steady rate of growth — historically 6% a year. The reason this should happen is very simple: Population growth.
Metropolitan Phoenix is a unique real estate market. While other cities experience static — or even negative — population change, The Valley of the Sun routinely adds 100,000 new residents every year. There is no reason to think this will stop — not now and not soon. The carrying capacity of Greater Phoenix is eight million souls, about 266% our present population. We will hit that number — but not until 2040 or after.
A significant proportion of those people will want to live indoors, which evidently is such a flimsy idea that it cannot penetrate the skull of a BubbleBlogger. Ah, well, it takes all kinds — although the lord alone knows why it should.
In any case, here do I compile my list of 21 really good reasons to bank on the future of the Phoenix area real estate market:
1. The migration from the Snow Belt states to Metropolitan Phoenix has been unabated for 60 years.
2. A similar extended migration is now occurring from the Northwestern states and Western Canada.
3. The “installed base” of all those migrants brings a steady stream of extended family members.
4. Proposition 13 makes moving up difficult in California; many Golden State sellers buy in the Phoenix area.
5. Californians in pursuit of other objectives — e.g., a friendlier business climate — migrate to the Valley of the Sun.
6. Baby Boomers will retire in droves to warmer climes — the Atlantic coast, the Gulf states and the Southwest.
7. Among those locales, Phoenix is by far the least prone to natural disasters.
8. Because of this, people from disaster-afflicted regions have formed a new stream of in-migration.
9. There is a steady migration of new residents from Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries south of the border.
10. Phoenix is a destination of choice or the second-landing city for immigrants from all over the world.
11. While higher oil prices will put a strain on our far-flung suburbs, the greatest pain will be felt in Northern states where fuel oil or natural gas are used as heat sources; even people who don’t hate the winter will move to the Phoenix area to escape high heating bills.
12. The Phoenix Metropolitan area is a dynamic jobs creation machine, adding tens of thousand of new jobs every year.
13. People who have or hope to have children move here as soon as they can manage it.
14. Compared to the areas from which many of our in-migrants are drawn, our homes are still very affordable.
15. We build thousands more new homes every year.
16. The Greater Phoenix area has 60 years of sustained practice at managing extreme growth — this in contrast to thrashing cities like Las Vegas.
17. Snowbirds, politely known as Our Winter Visitors, eventually move here year-around.
18. Our first waves of massive migration occurred after WW II; mustered out soldiers who had been stationed here came back with their families; this pattern continues among people who are posted here temporarily for various reasons.
19. People who stay at our resorts often fall in love with the Valley of the Sun and return as soon as they are able.
20. A significant number of active and retired professional athletes maintain homes here, in no small part because the Phoenix/Scottsdale area has…
21. Year-around golf.
It could be there’s too much sun here for congenital cellar-dwellers — but that’s a good thing!
January 15, 2007 (LPAC)-- Lennar Homes announced Tuesday that it has sold 11,000 properties in eight states to investment bank Morgan Stanley for 40 cents on the dollar (based on an already depressed November valuation). The purchase, by Morgan's Real Estate division, was for properties in 32 communities, although the amounts and in what states of development the properties were in, were not stated. Wall Street has seized on this, the first big sale since the market began to tank, proclaiming that this event had (finally) set a "floor" for the industry, as if it can only go up from here. What they don't yet understand is that it is the entire house which is collapsing, and, as they are trying to build a "floor," the "basement" is continuing to recede.
Indicative of the collapse process we are now in, is the emergence of real estate "vultures." About 150 so-called "real estate opportunity funds" have been formed to buy distressed properties and other assets, a 21 percent increase over the number this time last year and an all-time high, according to Real Estate Alert, as quoted by Bloomberg News. "We're watching Denver, Phoenix, Austin and Tucson, but South Florida is our principal focus," said one self-described vulture. "If you're a vulture, Florida has more carrion. This stuff is lying on the ground. It's lost life. Some of the stuff in Phoenix is still breathing. Perhaps not for long."
Choose life, fight for LaRouche's Homeowners and Bank Protection Act
This man might be able to make some money at a carnival, by letting people pay to throw pies in his face! Or the dunk tank!
What seems much more likely is that Phoenix will recover from the hangover of last year’s buying binge and get back to a steady rate of growth — historically 6% a year. The reason this should happen is very simple: Population growth.
Metropolitan Phoenix is a unique real estate market. While other cities experience static — or even negative — population change, The Valley of the Sun routinely adds 100,000 new residents every year. There is no reason to think this will stop — not now and not soon. The carrying capacity of Greater Phoenix is eight million souls, about 266% our present population. We will hit that number — but not until 2040 or after.
LMFAO!! Oh my God! That is right out of the NAR spinbook!!! Swann and everyone else who spewed that kind of crap have been totally discredited. I love it!
One observation since then - having lived in CA for almost a year now, I can tell you that the normal, dignified Californians generally don't leave, and the few who do move back within 2 years. The only Californians moving to Phx permanently are low-down white trash, illegals, criminals afraid of their 3rd strike, etc. Which explains Phx's explosive crime rates.
Another observation - most of my friends in Arizona have either moved away or are planning to move for a job, because jobs in Phx are drying up. So much for the never-ending population growth.
Swann and his ilk are eating a truckload of crap these days.
Times must be tough for old Greggy, because I see from his blog that he's pimping his son out now for web site work.
The important thing to remember is that Swann singled himself out for this.
He could have just sold houses and kept his trap shut about the bubble debate (he *is* a salesman after all).
He could have even written a withering parity about the "extreme" bubbleheads...
But no. Everything in the housing market was great, and anyone who said otherwise betrayed a critical character flaw.
Make this the topic for the month so that it stays on top Keith. If there is one individual who personifies the human traits that need to be held up to ridicule, it's Swann.
It is impossible, by definition, to go too far with this.
FRANK SAID: Another observation - most of my friends in Arizona have either moved away or are planning to move for a job, because jobs in Phx are drying up. So much for the never-ending population growth.
((((((((
Sure Frank, like you have friends/
He must have gotten beat up a lot as a fat kid
The Phoenix market has taken a Swann dive.
It will be interesting to see if Swann acts according to the way he demands others to act and offers up an apology. But I'm not counting on it.
Sorry to break it to you dolts but he is right. I keep seeing you cheer news that supports your point of view... and then.... you are painfully quiet whenever news goes the other way.
Go stick your heads back in the sand!
Oh, Yeah, Go Ron paul! Serves you right to have him take your money and run.
Idiots.
Crash ?It's only just begun here in Phoenix and towns like Gilbert.Prices have a huge way to go down.People who think they are buying the bottom are catching the proverbial falling knife.Say goodbye to your equity Az homeowners.
"We keep our own home sales price statistics, so we have no doubt that values are down from their high in December. How much? Right now, about 4%."
That's according to the Anon/Swann housing statistics? That's comic relief dude. Good one!
Kieth, never, EVER let that asshole off the hook. He's so pompous ... and so dead-wrong stupid.
And probably, so broke (or at least getting there).
Mike Brown is another at that site who would deserve being burned at the stake, as well. He was pushing 100% financed homes in San Diego as late as 2006.
"Make this the topic for the month so that it stays on top Keith. If there is one individual who personifies the human traits that need to be held up to ridicule, it's Swann.
It is impossible, by definition, to go too far with this."
I couldn't agree more. Keith, never EVER let this asshole off the hook. Revisit the subject often, and as necessary.
winjr
"Anonymous said...
Sorry to break it to you dolts but he is right. I keep seeing you cheer news that supports your point of view... and then.... you are painfully quiet whenever news goes the other way."
Yeah? Leave your name and say that, jackass!!
Sorry to break it YOU, but if you're long anything other than put contracts, you're fvck'd!
LOL!!!!
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